


The Unraveling

by firecrackerx



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 21:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3624681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firecrackerx/pseuds/firecrackerx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lola Perry is knitting a scarf and requires assistance. Set before the epilogue on episode thirty-six of the webseries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unraveling

Perry took the red mess out of her knitting basket. She had to use both hands to grip the pile and still some of it spilled around them in furious knots and tangles. There was almost a whole ball of yarn in the heap, twisted into absolute chaos. She felt her face warming and knew she was blushing. She hated messes like this, disorderly things. LaFontaine only glanced at it and one of their eyebrows arched slightly.

"I would have skinned the cat that did this," they said, sitting cross-legged on Perry's bed.

"I never saw the cat. And it was my fault. I left the basket in the common room."

"There's no way you could have known someone was keeping a cat in their room, so it's not your fault, okay?" they said, taking the voluminous tangle of yarn to their lap and examining it distractedly.

"Do you think it can be unraveled? I don't want to go to town and buy all my yarn again."

"Sure it can. It will take time, though."

"If you can't..."

"No. No, I'll do it. Don't worry."

And without another word, LaFontaine started moving their fingers through the red threads, patiently locating the first knot to undo. Perry fetched her knitting needles and sat by their side, waiting.

During the two hours LaFontaine spent with her, Perry advanced slowly with her knitting. Little by little, the red end of the scarf appeared, fed painstakingly by the thread LaFontaine was able to liberate from the tangle. She didn't mind the waiting, or the silence, or the fact that LaFontaine was sitting on the other side of the bed, staying perfectly still instead of relaxing and laying down like they used to. Having LaFontaine as a knitting partner was not something new. Perry had always liked having them around when she crafted. LaFontaine always sat by her side, holding the ball of yarn on their lap, sometimes reading or struggling to get comfortable with the laptop, rolling to one side and the other, sitting up, almost invariably ending with their legs interwoven with Perry's and the laptop on their stomach. They had always helped when some thread twisted into a knot; despite their preference for direct action, LaFontaine was good with things that took time and patience, sheer willpower. Yes, LaFontaine had been there through the making of many sweaters, scarves and socks, sometimes simply sitting in comfortable silence with Perry while the needles clicked together, enjoying the excuse for proximity. Other times, they talked over the clicking of needles about everything they would not discuss when someone else was present, words growing on layers upon layers of hours and days, a strata of shared years.

"What are you making?" they asked, after more than an hour of silence. It was not an uncomfortable silence, but Perry was unable to sit on it in peace. The thickness of it, the electricity of it, was making her skin itch.

"Just a scarf," she said as she messed up the last stitch and went back to redo it. She counted the whole row for good measure. LaFontaine made a noise that could have meant anything. Perry counted the row again.

To be honest, she had not expected a memorable conversation. Something between them had snapped that year. The disappearances, the tension, LaFontaine changing, Perry herself changing while trying not to... Snap. Snapsnapsnap. Their beautiful balance broken. After the battle under the Lustig building, it had pulled itself together, but the damage still showed, like an ugly scar on a shattered vase glued back together. LaFontaine barely stopped by her room anymore. It had been days since they had spoken for more than a few minutes. They were always in the library; they had no time for her, or for scarves. But Perry had asked for help to unravel the yarn, because despite everything that had happened between them and their ugly scars, LaFontaine was still LaFontaine and Perry wanted to believe not everything they had been before was lost and changed, and such was the nature of their shared inertia that LaFontaine agreed to go to her room that afternoon.

And there they were, knitting and unraveling in silence. Click, click, click, went the needles, and Perry's heart beat heavily when she thought of the red string of yarn between them.

 

The red yarn was far from returned to its original balled up shape, but on the second afternoon Perry left it in the basket and gave LaFontaine a mess of a different color. LaFontaine huffed softly, turning the snarled mess this way and that on their lap.

"If you are in a hurry, you can go, I'll manage," said Perry a little too fast, almost as if hurrying to make the words dissolve into the air faster, make them disappear quickly.

"No, it's okay, I can stay and give you a hand with this," said LaFontaine slowly, already engrossed on the first tangle. Perry nodded and sat by their side, waiting for them to free one end of the thread she could loop around the needle to start the second section of the scarf. She observed them as they worked. The slight frown, the resolved movements. She loved having them back, even if it was for a few hours. She loved the scarf for it, too. For a moment she didn't even mind the terrible messes of yarn that repulsed her so when she pulled them out of the basket. LaFontaine talked a little about their last science project and a movie they wanted to watch. After the first two hours they started moving, slowly, stretching their legs awkwardly, trying not to disturb Perry. She put the knitting away, grabbed their legs and placed them on her lap. She did it efficiently, unceremoniously, without any tenderness, and went back to her knitting right away. She did not look up, but she felt LaFontaine's legs relax over her thighs as a sharp need to kiss them bubbled in the back of her mind.

 

The fourth evening, the yarn that spilled over LaFontaine's stomach as they worked on it patiently was of a vivid green, and Perry thought she would have made them a green sweater, just in that color, if they had still been their old selves.

"Fuck, this knot right here..." they mumbled, crossing their ankles over Perry's lap.

"I am so sorry about all this," whispered Perry.

"No, it's okay, it's okay, Perr. It's not like I haven't done this before for you, right?"

"I know, but you were always around and the tangles weren't so bad. Now I have to call you so you spend part of your afternoon here doing this boring thing. I feel a little guilty about it," she murmured. It was partly true. She did feel bad about it. But she felt good about it, too. The whole situation was too complicated. It drove her crazy when LaFontaine was there and she had to swallow everything she wanted to say, had to count rows of stitches to stay in place instead of holding them and kissing the marks on their face from the fight under the Lustig. It drove her crazy too when LaFontaine left, because they always left, never stayed more than three hours, and Perry was left alone with the messes of yarn, and the empty room, and her thoughts, her wonderful, beautiful, torturing thoughts. 

"I told you it's okay,” said LaFontaine. “And besides... I like being here with you."

Perry's toes curled inside her shoes, childishly. She had to count the stitches again before the next one. They groaned again:

"Ugh, this knot, I swear, I'm..."

The earth shook and grumbled. Books trembled on the shelves, small objects rattled loudly inside drawers and on her desk. Perry suspended the needles, the points almost touching. They looked at each other until it passed, eyes wide.

"That happens a lot..."

"Yep," murmured LaFontaine looking back to the yarn. "We've been investigating what can be causing it. That can't be normal. Of course, people around here get used to everything, but seriously, that's not normal. That was the second one today, too. I'm going back to the library after this and writing it down, there could be a pattern we've not seen yet."

Perry continues her row of stitches silently. How many hours do you stay down there?, she wanted to ask. Would you come at all if I didn't call you every day to help me, appealing to your kindness? But of course, LaFontaine was busy doing far more interesting things in the library than helping knit a scarf. Even when formless and intangible, he still had more in common with LaFontaine that she had ever had. She didn't feel much like knitting anymore, but she wanted to keep them close for as long as possible. Click. Click. Click.

When LaFontaine leaves for the library and the room is empty once more, Perry goes to her craft basket with a heavy heart and shoves in it the green, shapeless mass of yarn, emerald green, like her jealousy.

 

The morning of the fifth day Perry textes LaFontaine in her usual careful way, not missing a single letter, respecting all capitals. Would they come help her with the next color in the afternoon, same time? LaFontaine answers in their laconic way, without capitals or punctuation. Yes, they would.

After lunch, Perry brushes her teeth, returns a book to a classmate, fetches her clothes from the laundry room, folds them and puts them away, and makes a batch of brownies. Maybe she will get LaFontaine to stay a little longer today. She places the scarf on the bed, pierced by the crossed needles on one end. Only two more colors to go. And maybe she'll make it twice as long, add a second repetition of the colored pattern. Definitely.  
  
The basket lies by her bookshelf. She finds the ball of blue yarn immediately: it's new and still sealed, beautifully compact in her hand. She breaks the seal, letting the ball fall on the floor, and pulls the thread hard. The little ball spins, unraveling precious seconds, minutes, hours, until her hands are full of soft blue thread. Her fingers tangle and pull, carefully but quickly, looping, knotting, twisting, tangling another minute, and another one, and another one, and another one. At the end she is panting softly and her fingers burn with the brush of yarn. Enough, it will be enough. It will do.

Returning the blue mess to the basket, disgusted by the sight of it, she thinks of the classical myth of Penelope and her weaving, she thinks of love, of long waitings, of tricking time with thread and needles, of luring suitors close instead of driving them away. She looks at the scarf on the bed, chewing her lower lip, and thinks this trick won't last twenty years, unlike the one in the tale. She's paying with lies and ugly messes for a few hours of warmth every day. Her basket is full of them. Terrible, terrible messes. And she will do it again tomorrow, she knows it, without a second thought, without a doubt, kicking it out of sight afterwards.

There's a knock on the door and LaFontaine enters the room with warm blue eyes, carrying a bag of books on one shoulder that has made the left side of their collar pop up, begging for a hand to fold it down; Perry feels her blood rushing, heart wild against her ribcage.

"Sorry, I am a little early. Do you mind? I won’t leave early, I promise..." they sniff, looking around. "Hey, you made brownies? Where?"

Suddenly, Perry feels like she doesn't need twenty years at all, that the next hours will suffice to warm her forever. But of course, she thinks as she steps closer and fixes their collar casually, wishing she could speak the words out loud, if she could, if she dared, I only feel this way because you are here now.


End file.
